This is a lecture and discussion course on the various approaches to
civil rights activism taken by W.E.B. Du Bois, who was born in the
era of Reconstruction and who died on the eve of the March on
Washington. Over the course of his long life, Du Bois struggled
against racism using a wide variety of tactics and strategies:
rigorous scholarship, moral suasion, formal politics, cultural
nationalism, racial separatism, literary production, nonviolent
protests, communist affiliation, and international statesmanship. In
considering the history of these approaches, this course will expose
students to a broader understanding of American political history
and a longer history of the Civil Rights Movement.